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According to a new study, breathing air polluted by exhaust gases would have more impacts on the health of women than on that of men. This would therefore expose them to more respiratory and cardiovascular risks.
Men and women are not always equal when it comes to health risks. This is revealed once again by a study presented at the International Congress of the European Respiratory Society in Barcelona, this time focusing on the impact of breathing diesel exhaust. According to the study, air pollution, in fact, would cause changes in blood components linked to inflammation, infections and cardiovascular disease. But, new fact, these changes would be much more numerous in women.
Changes in the blood, linked to pollution
To establish this finding, a team of researchers from the University of Manitoba, Canada, looked for changes in the blood of people exposed to diesel exhaust. Ten volunteers were involved, five women and five men, all non-smokers and in good health. Each volunteer spent four hours breathing filtered air and four hours breathing air containing diesel exhaust with a four-week break between each exposure.
Then, blood and plasma tests were performed 24 hours after each exposure, looking for changes in the levels of various proteins.
The study reveals that the researchers then found levels of 90 proteins that were markedly different between female and male volunteers. And of the proteins that differ, those known to play a role in inflammation, damage repair, blood clotting, cardiovascular disease and the immune system were well represented.
A step forward to better protect women
For Professor Neeloffer Mookherjee, one of the study’s authors, the finding is significant: “The results are preliminary, but they show that exposure to diesel exhaust has different effects on women’s bodies compared to men’s and this could indicate that air pollution is more dangerous for women. only for men” he evokes. “This is important because respiratory diseases such as asthma are known to affect women and men differently. Therefore, we need to know much more about how women and men respond to air pollution and what this means for preventing, diagnosing and treating their respiratory diseases.”
A momentum that could echo in France, while Elisabeth Borne, Prime Minister, has just announced her roadmap, placing high among her priorities the fight for equal opportunities for men and women, both at the level of education than access to health.